I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
Umberto Eco
********************
"Life's perhaps the only riddle that we shrink from giving up."
(W. S. Gilbert)
Umberto Eco is a great novelist in my opinion. I've read "The Name of the Rose" and "Foucault's Pendulum" (twice). I don't read many novels. But I do read a lot of philosophy, history, psychology and science. Novelists can invent the universe to suit themselves. Philosophers and historians can't. They can only engage in the "mad attempt" to interpret the universe. It is those attempts that make life interesting for me.,
One philosopher attempts to describe the history of the human race through etymology, another through the growth and search for food, another from the perspective of religious beliefs. The future of mankind is perceived in the test tube, or the telescope. Destiny, tautology, or transfiguration. Is the next era defined by robotics or the development of nutrition, or both?
Hanging over the head of all this scholarship is a dilemma. Is there a final answer? Is there a universal law, a universal panacea, a universal equation that explains everything and makes it go away?
It may be a futile search for that "underlying truth" but it is also a "riddle that we shrink from giving up." As long as the search goes on there will be those who write about it, and they are the ones who keep me up at night.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
*********************
This invitation is still open for anyone and everyone to post an entry of their own on my journal, Vagabond Journeys http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/.
The new year is upon us and since it is a time for celebrations, remembrances, resolutions and plans for the future I think people have things to say.
Not to take away from the postings on your own journals, but to add to the joy of my own is why I invite you to write for mine.
I want to read what your thoughts are about this magical time of the year. This invitation is open to everyone: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, Agnostics, Atheists and the Uncertain.
Tell me your thoughts on any subject you wish or associate with this new year.
There are no limits in regard to length. The only limitation is that, for reasons so far unexplained to me, my blog does not take photographs, animations, videos or pictures of any kind. I deal in words.
Please accept my invitation. Send your entry to my email address dbdacoba@aol.com I will copy and paste it into my journal and it will be displayed promptly. You may sign your name or not as you wish, and you may leave a link to your blog or your email or not, as you wish. I will do NO editing or censoring. Eloquence is not necessary, mind or heart or both is all.
I have 12 Guest Authors so far. Check them out.
All are welcome. Admission is free.
DB - The Vagabond
***************************
Showing posts with label the universe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the universe. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Inside The Bubble
Mind is everything. Mind pulls the universe out of a top hat, bows to its own applause, and walks off the stage grinning.
Stephen Mitchell
********************
Hello Arica, Chile
********************
One of my comments I'm fond of is that a person could be happy being an observer of his own life if he could find a safe place to stand. How grand and entertaining it would be if we could be spectators at the game of life. Every now and then, however, the ball comes into our territory and we have to do something about it.
Yesterday in this journal I noted that we are all part of the universe. All the activities of the universe are going on all the time and some of them include you and me. One of the most important activities we humans do is to attempt to understand the universe, from the scientist in the lab peering into the mysterious molecules of cells and crystals to the mighty Hubble telescope capturing images from an unimaginable distance away.
Attempting to define and describe the universe while living in it is a problem, like living inside a giant bubble and trying to see it from the outside. It does not mean that all efforts to understand the universe are futile. But the deeper we look and the farther we go there comes a point where a shift is made from merely material measurements into the atmosphere of imagination, intellect and ideas.
We are in the universe. We are not separate from it. We are attempting to understand the universe. Therefore the universe is attempting to understand itself. It could not do that if it did not have intelligence. Mind.
Dana Bate
The Vagabond
*****************
Never Give Up
********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Stephen Mitchell
********************
Hello Arica, Chile
********************
One of my comments I'm fond of is that a person could be happy being an observer of his own life if he could find a safe place to stand. How grand and entertaining it would be if we could be spectators at the game of life. Every now and then, however, the ball comes into our territory and we have to do something about it.
Yesterday in this journal I noted that we are all part of the universe. All the activities of the universe are going on all the time and some of them include you and me. One of the most important activities we humans do is to attempt to understand the universe, from the scientist in the lab peering into the mysterious molecules of cells and crystals to the mighty Hubble telescope capturing images from an unimaginable distance away.
Attempting to define and describe the universe while living in it is a problem, like living inside a giant bubble and trying to see it from the outside. It does not mean that all efforts to understand the universe are futile. But the deeper we look and the farther we go there comes a point where a shift is made from merely material measurements into the atmosphere of imagination, intellect and ideas.
We are in the universe. We are not separate from it. We are attempting to understand the universe. Therefore the universe is attempting to understand itself. It could not do that if it did not have intelligence. Mind.
Dana Bate
The Vagabond
*****************
Never Give Up
********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Searching The Grains
It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.
Friedrich Von Schlegel
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I don't know everything. I don't know anything. I don't want to know everything about anything because then I would have nothing to learn. The universe is an infinite place but life is greater than the universe, it's greater than the infinite because it includes the universe.
Some people believe that life ends, that there's a stopping point. There's death. Or there's the "Great Reward" when we are judged for the life we lived and then are checked into heaven or hell to spend an eternity in torment or whatever it is that folks do in heaven. I think those concepts are very confining and not worthy of the universe in which we live.
Space scientists are among those who are looking for some form of life an other planets, and sooner or later they will probably find it. They should certainly continue the search. But until time travel is discovered all the information they get will be billions of years old. Even so, the search itself is the result of the need to know things, to learn things. To some it may seem to be like analyzing grains of sand on a beach, but the search is also a search into human life. Every discovery, each new thing learned, affects human mentality even if we don't notice it.
The search for life elsewhere in the universe is a search for life itself, for the knowledge of what life really is, outside of stars and planets, and the discoveries that affect our mentality, our perception of life, are also discoveries of mind and mind is what is greater than the universe.
In the mental gutters of the world the human mind seems to be used for nothing but a universe of dangerous, disgusting or pointless activities. Some people have risen out of those gutters, many have not. Those who have not are stultified by beliefs and are not in a search for anything beyond what they know. It can be seen in commerce, politics, government, the business of daily life, religion and, yes, even in art.
When we reach the level of understanding that even the stars and planets are not as important as mind, the true universe, real exploration will begin and real life will continue.
DB - The Vagabond
*****************
SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?
4 responses so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Thank you.
DB
********************
Friedrich Von Schlegel
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I don't know everything. I don't know anything. I don't want to know everything about anything because then I would have nothing to learn. The universe is an infinite place but life is greater than the universe, it's greater than the infinite because it includes the universe.
Some people believe that life ends, that there's a stopping point. There's death. Or there's the "Great Reward" when we are judged for the life we lived and then are checked into heaven or hell to spend an eternity in torment or whatever it is that folks do in heaven. I think those concepts are very confining and not worthy of the universe in which we live.
Space scientists are among those who are looking for some form of life an other planets, and sooner or later they will probably find it. They should certainly continue the search. But until time travel is discovered all the information they get will be billions of years old. Even so, the search itself is the result of the need to know things, to learn things. To some it may seem to be like analyzing grains of sand on a beach, but the search is also a search into human life. Every discovery, each new thing learned, affects human mentality even if we don't notice it.
The search for life elsewhere in the universe is a search for life itself, for the knowledge of what life really is, outside of stars and planets, and the discoveries that affect our mentality, our perception of life, are also discoveries of mind and mind is what is greater than the universe.
In the mental gutters of the world the human mind seems to be used for nothing but a universe of dangerous, disgusting or pointless activities. Some people have risen out of those gutters, many have not. Those who have not are stultified by beliefs and are not in a search for anything beyond what they know. It can be seen in commerce, politics, government, the business of daily life, religion and, yes, even in art.
When we reach the level of understanding that even the stars and planets are not as important as mind, the true universe, real exploration will begin and real life will continue.
DB - The Vagabond
*****************
SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?
4 responses so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Thank you.
DB
********************
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